Controversial Singaporean blogger Amos Yee is behind bars again in the US, just a month after he was released on parole.
Yee, 25, was transferred to the Stateville Correctional Centre, a maximum-security prison in Illinois, on Tuesday, according to a mobile app that tracks the status of offenders. The reason for his return to prison is unclear, but it comes after he made two blog posts while on parole.
In the first post, dated Oct. 23, he shared some insights into his prison and parole life, and said he wanted to go back to Singapore, despite facing jail time for dodging national service. In the second post, dated Nov. 5, he listed “6 Impressive Things I Want to Do”, one of which was to make “defending pedophiles” popular.
Yee was previously sentenced to six years in jail at the Illinois River Correctional Centre, a medium-security prison, for soliciting nude photos from a 14-year-old girl in Texas and having child pornography on his phone.
The charges against Yee stemmed from his actions in February 2019 when, at the age of 20, he repeatedly solicited explicit photos from the underage victim via WhatsApp. Yee also engaged in explicit role-play and exchanged thousands of messages with her. Despite the girl’s insistence on disclosing her age, Yee instructed her to remove her age from her WhatsApp profile.
During his sentencing in December 2021, Yee accepted a plea deal that resulted in 16 other child pornography-related charges being dismissed.
He was paroled on Oct 7, more than three years before his original release date in 2026.
As a result of his convictions, he is registered as a sex offender in the US, which means his personal details are publicly available online. He also faces the risk of deportation, denial of entry or citizenship, and difficulties in obtaining housing, employment or licences in the US, as he was warned by the judge at his sentencing.
The Singaporean national fled his home country for the United States in December 2016, just one day before he was due to report for a medical examination ahead of his national service enlistment.
In 2017, he was granted political asylum in the US, citing persecution for his political opinions following two separate jail terms in Singapore.
In 2015, Yee was sentenced to four weeks in jail for engaging in hate speech against Christians in a YouTube video and publishing an obscene image of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.
The following year, he faced further charges for derogatory comments about Christianity and Islam in videos and blog posts, resulting in a six-week jail term and a S$2,000 fine.
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